Umami: the fifth taste discovered in Japan in 1908
Umami is the fifth basic taste alongside sweet, salty, sour, and bitter: it comes from glutamic acid and related compounds, and the tongue has separate receptors for it. The taste has an exact date and author: in 1908, chemist Ikeda Kikunae isolated glutamate from kombu broth and named the new taste "umami." The word in other languages is a direct borrowing from Japanese.
"Umami" is often described vaguely — as a Japanese food philosophy — but behind the word stands a concrete scientific discovery with a name, a year, and a university. Let's break down what physically creates this taste, who isolated it and how, what other compounds produce the same effect, and why umami is not a Japanese exclusivity at all, but a taste familiar to European cuisine as well.
A taste that has its own receptors on the tongue
The tongue has its own receptors for umami — just as it does for sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. That is exactly why it was recognized as the fifth basic taste, and not as a shade of the other four. Umami is produced by glutamic acid and several related compounds, and this taste is harder to describe in words than sweet or salty: it is most often called "meaty," "brothy," or "mouth-filling."
Why it went unnoticed until the 20th century
Umami almost never appears alone: it enhances and draws out the other tastes of a dish, rather than standing on its own like obvious sweetness or sourness. Because of this, it was long taken for a general sensation of "richness" or "good broth," rather than a separate, independent taste.
旨 — значение: delicious, essence, the main point, content — онъёми: シ — кунъёми: むね、うま.い — 6 штрих(ов). 旨 — "delicious," and also "essence, the main point." In the word 旨味 it comes first: "delicious" plus 味 "taste." The same word with this character in other combinations means "the heart of the matter" — for example 主旨 (shushi), "main meaning." In scientific and official texts, the word is more often written mixed, うま味, kana and kanji together, to distinguish the scientific term from everyday "tasty."
Write 旨 along the guides — the first character in the word 旨味, which means both "delicious" and "the heart of the matter."
Ikeda Kikunae and the question of why dashi is so rich
In 1908, chemist Ikeda Kikunae, a professor at Tokyo Imperial University, was investigating why kombu dashi broth tastes so rich. He isolated crystals of glutamic acid from this broth and gave the new taste the name うま味 (umami) — from 旨い "delicious" and 味 "taste." That same year he filed a patent for a method of producing a glutamate seasoning.
How the word became an international term
Worldwide recognition did not come at once. Only in 1985, at the first international symposium on umami in Hawaii, did scientists from several countries agree that this taste is physiologically distinct from the other four, and they adopted the word "umami" as a common scientific term. Since then it has entered other languages as a direct borrowing from Japanese, without translation.
Glutamate, inosinate, guanylate: three sources of one taste
Besides glutamate, which Ikeda isolated from kombu, two more compounds with the same effect were later found. Inosinate was extracted from katsuobushi in 1913 by Kodama Shintaro, a member of Ikeda's laboratory, and guanylate was discovered in 1957 in dried shiitake by Kuninaka Akira of the Yamasa company.
Why kombu and katsuobushi are put together in dashi
Kuninaka's key finding was that when glutamate is mixed with inosinate or guanylate, their combined effect is noticeably stronger than the sum of the parts. That is exactly why dashi broth is made not with one ingredient but with kombu and katsuobushi at once: the glutamate of the former is enhanced by the inosinate of the latter.
Not only Japan: where else umami hides
Umami is not a Japanese exclusivity: the same taste is given by parmesan, sun-dried tomatoes, anchovies, soy sauce, and miso — it's just that in these products glutamate and related compounds accumulate naturally, without special isolation. It is worth acknowledging this directly: umami is a common property of many fermented and aged products, not the secret of one cuisine.
味の素 — the first industrial seasoning with this taste
Based on Ikeda's discovery, in 1909 a Japanese company released the seasoning 味の素 (Ajinomoto) — monosodium glutamate in pure form, the world's first industrial product with an umami taste enhancer. The company and seasoning names have coincided ever since, and "Ajinomoto" is often used as a colloquial name for the whole category of such seasonings.
FAQ
- What is umami?
- Umami is the fifth basic taste alongside sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. It is produced by glutamic acid and several related compounds, and the tongue has separate receptors for it. The taste is hard to describe in words: it is most often called meaty, brothy, or mouth-filling.
- Who discovered umami and when?
- In 1908, Ikeda Kikunae, a professor at Tokyo Imperial University, isolated glutamic acid from kombu broth and gave the new taste the name うま味. International recognition came only in 1985, when at a symposium in Hawaii the word "umami" was adopted as a scientific term.
- Why is umami called the fifth taste?
- Because sweet, salty, sour, and bitter were known as basic tastes long before umami, and it was long considered a general sensation of richness rather than a separate taste. Ikeda Kikunae's discovery and subsequent physiological research showed that the tongue has its own receptors for umami, just as for the other four.
- What foods contain umami?
- The umami taste is found not only in kombu and katsuobushi, but also in parmesan, sun-dried tomatoes, anchovies, soy sauce, and miso — wherever glutamate or related compounds accumulate naturally. Therefore umami is more correctly considered a common property of many fermented and aged products, not a Japanese peculiarity.
- How does umami differ from salty taste?
- Salty taste is produced by sodium ions from ordinary salt, while umami is produced by glutamic acid and related compounds, and they are recognized by different receptors on the tongue. In practice, umami is often confused with the sensation of a dish being "rich," but it arises even without a single grain of salt if the product contains enough glutamate.
- What is Ajinomoto?
- Ajinomoto (味の素) is a seasoning based on monosodium glutamate, released in 1909 by a Japanese company based on Ikeda Kikunae's discovery. It was the world's first industrial product with an umami taste enhancer, and since then the seasoning's name has often been used as a colloquial name for the whole category.
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Updated: 2026-09-21